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19-letter words containing b, s, m

  • disablement benefit — (in Britain) a noncontributory benefit payable to a person disabled through injury or disease caused by their work
  • disambiguation page — a page on a website that lists various websites or web pages that have or could have the same title. The user is able to select from the list that page, site etc that he or she actually wants
  • distributed systems — distributed system
  • distribution system — The distribution system is the part of an electric system after the transmission system that is dedicated to delivering electric energy to an end user.
  • dutchman's-breeches — a plant, Dicentra cucullaria, of the fumitory family, having long clusters of pale-yellow, two-spurred flowers.
  • essence of bergamot — a fragrant essential oil from the fruit rind of this plant, used in perfumery and some teas (including Earl Grey)
  • eusebius (pamphili) — a.d. 264?-340; Gr. ecclesiastical historian
  • financial ombudsman — any of five British ombudsmen: the Banking Ombudsman, set up in 1986 to investigate complaints from bank customers; the Building Society Ombudsman, set up in 1987 to investigate complaints from building society customers; the Insurance Ombudsman, set up in 1981 to investigate complaints by policyholders (since 1988 this ombudsman has also operated a Unit Trust Ombudsman scheme); the Investment Ombudsman set up in 1989 to investigate complaints by investors (the Personal Investment Authority Ombudsman is responsible for investigating complaints by personal investors); and the Pensions Ombudsman, set up in 1993 to investigate complaints regarding pension schemes
  • first world problem — a fairly minor problem, frustrating situation, or complaint associated with a relatively high standard of living, as opposed to the more serious problems associated with poverty: I’m bored with all my electronic gadgets—such a first world problem!
  • giraldus cambrensis — literary name of Gerald de Barri. ?1146–?1223, Welsh chronicler and churchman, noted for his accounts of his travels in Ireland and Wales
  • goodwill ambassador — an ambassador who shows goodwill to another country, organization, etc, on behalf of his or her own country, organization, etc
  • green mountain boys — the members of the armed bands of Vermont organized in 1770 to oppose New York's territorial claims. Under Ethan Allen they won fame in the War of American Independence
  • handlebar moustache — a man's moustache having long, curved ends that resemble the handlebars of a bicycle.
  • heat of sublimation — the heat absorbed by one gram or unit mass of a substance in the process of changing, at a constant temperature and pressure, from a solid to a gaseous state. Compare sublime (def 10).
  • human rights abuses — acts that contravene human rights
  • immersion objective — a microscope objective of high resolving power in which the space between the front lens and the cover glass is filled with an oil whose index of refraction is close to that of the objective and the cover glass.
  • incommensurableness — (rare) Incommensurability.
  • incomprehensibility — impossible to understand or comprehend; unintelligible.
  • internal-combustion — of or relating to an internal-combustion engine.
  • isthmus of san blas — the narrowest part of the Isthmus of Panama. Width: about 50 km (30 miles)
  • job creation scheme — a governmental scheme to increase the number of jobs in an area, organization, etc
  • jumping bristletail — any of several thysanuran insects that live in dark, warm, moist places, as under leaves, bark, and dead tree trunks and along rocky seacoasts, and are active jumpers, making erratic leaps when disturbed.
  • keyboard instrument — any musical instrument that is played using a keyboard
  • king's remembrancer — (in Great Britain) a judiciary official who collects debts owed to the king.
  • knights of columbus — an international fraternal and benevolent organization of Roman Catholic men, founded in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1882.
  • knock someone bandy — to amaze or astound
  • lobster-tail helmet — a burgonet fitted with a long, articulated tail of lames for protecting the nape of the neck, worn by cavalry in the 17th century.
  • magnesium carbonate — a white powder, MgCO 3 , insoluble in water and alcohol, soluble in acids, used in dentifrices and cosmetics, in medicine as an antacid, and as a refractory material.
  • make no bones about — Anatomy, Zoology. one of the structures composing the skeleton of a vertebrate. the hard connective tissue forming the substance of the skeleton of most vertebrates, composed of a collagen-rich organic matrix impregnated with calcium, phosphate, and other minerals.
  • make the best of it — cope
  • malleable cast iron — white cast iron that has been malleablized.
  • meet sb's eyes/gaze — If you do not meet someone's eyes or meet someone's gaze, you do not look at them although they are looking at you, for example because you are ashamed.
  • megabits per second — (unit)   (Mbps, Mb/s) Millions of bits per second. A unit of data rate. 1 Mb/s = 1,000,000 bits per second (not 1,048,576). E.g. Ethernet can carry 10 Mbps.
  • membership function — fuzzy subset
  • molecular biologist — a specialist in the study of biological phenomena at the molecular level
  • mutual masturbation — the act of two or more people masturbating each other
  • mutual savings bank — a noncapitalized savings bank that distributes its net earnings to depositors.
  • nominative absolute — a construction consisting in English of a noun, noun phrase, or pronoun in the nominative case followed by a predicate lacking a finite verb, used as a loose modifier of the whole sentence, as the play done in The play done, the audience left the theater.
  • normal distribution — a theoretical frequency distribution represented by a normal curve.
  • on someone's behalf — in / on behalf of, as a representative of or a proxy for: On behalf of my colleagues, I address you tonight.
  • palomar observatory — an astronomical observatory situated on Palomar Mountain in S California, having a 200-inch (508-cm) reflecting telescope and a 48-inch (122-cm) Schmidt telescope.
  • pointe-aux-trembles — a city in S Quebec, in E Canada, N of Montreal, on the St. Lawrence.
  • portobello mushroom — a dark mushroom, strong in flavor, having a broad, flat cap that is often grilled and eaten
  • post office problem — (algorithm)   Given a set of points (in N dimensions), find another point which minimises the sum of the distances from that point to each of the others.
  • potassium bisulfate — a colorless, crystalline, water-soluble solid, KHSO 4 , used chiefly in the conversion of tartrates to bitartrates.
  • potassium carbonate — a white, granular, water-soluble powder, K 2 CO 3 , used chiefly in the manufacture of soap, glass, and potassium salts.
  • pseudorandom number — (programming)   One of a sequence of numbers generated by some algorithm so as to have an even distribution over some range of values and minimal correlation between successive values. Pseudorandom numbers are used in simulation and encryption. They are pseudorandom not random because the sequence eventually repeats exactly and is entirely determined by the initial conditions. One of the simplest algorithms is x[i+1] = (a * x[i] + c) mod m but this repeats after at most m numbers and successive numbers are closely related. Better algorithms generally use more previous numbers to calculate the next number.
  • registration number — number on vehicle licence plate
  • removable hard disk — (storage)   A type of magnetic disk, or possibly magneto-optical disk which is not permanently attached to the disk drive (not a fixed disk) but which can be taken out and replaced, allowing many disks to be used in the same drive. The term "removable disk" would seem to be applicable to floppy disks but is generally reserved for hard disks in suitable cartridges such as those made by Syquest, Iomega and others. Removable disk packs were common on minicomputers such as the PDP-11 in use in the 1970s except that the drives were the size of washing machines and the disk packs as big as car wheels. Removable disks became popular on microcomputers in the 1990s as a cheap way of expanding disk space, transporting large amounts of data between computers and storing backups. Large, cheap fixed hard disks and USB memory sticks have made removable disks less attractive.
  • ring someone's bell — a hollow instrument of cast metal, typically cup-shaped with a flaring mouth, suspended from the vertex and rung by the strokes of a clapper, hammer, or the like.
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